Music Review: Band's true beauty in its inanity

Nerf Herder releases most ridiculous album yet

Published: Wednesday, October 30, 2002


Warning: Nerf Herder is not for the mature. Nerf Herder is not for uppity socialites. Nerf Herder should not be played in front of your grandmother nor is it suitable for charity banquets. Do not attempt to drink champagne while listening to Nerf Herder.

When Sammy Hagar ridicules and chastises the members of a band, their coolness rating automatically shoots through the roof. Such is the case with Nerf Herder and its third album American Cheese.

While the name may conjure up images of Little Bo Peep sitting on a hillside, watching over her flock of plush footballs and "harmless" foam faux-military weaponry graze on the fertile plains of Northern Ireland, Nerf Herder has no place in the land of clean fairy tales or anecdotal parables.

Some may remember Nerf Herder as the creators of such songs as "Doin' Laundry" from the Short Music for Short People compilation or, more notably, as crafting the thematic opening jingle to the WB's "Buffy the Vampire Slayer." While the latter credential might seem a bit out of character for punk band, Nerf Herder does not disappoint those who want to be injected with another insulin boost of shrewd social mockery and tales of spontaneous arousal.

When ingested, Nerf Herder travels directly to the appendix where it remains, brewing up more lewd toxicology for their self-depreciating brand of Pop-Rocks-meets-Nerds candy punk. Nerf Herder sings sweetly, yet underneath their confectioner's décor is a layer of tainted, mangled nougat.

Nerf Herder is an enthusiastically snide, witty and undeniably horny bag of tricks. The members' raging hormones make blink-182 look like an Italian castrati.

Akin to the Vandals both with respect to style and subject matter, one could conceivably argue that tact and class might as well be foreign words in the Nerf Herder dictionary of terms. Rather than be mature, the band would rather inform its constituent punk following that Jagermeister and Captain Crunch are as compatible as peanut butter and jelly and should be consumed with frequency.

No subject is irrelevant or tangential to Nerf Herder — everything is fair game. From bashing the cast of "Cheers" to commenting on the BYU girls basketball team, Nerf Herder throws caution to the wind.

A kinder, more passive version of Guttermouth's The Album Formerly Known as Full Length, American Cheese confirms that rather than being occupied with being politically correct, singer Parry Gripp — aptly named for his propensity to sing about his lonely, late night shenanigans while watching erotic Cinemax — is more interested in being politically erect.

In the song "Jenna Bush Army," Gripp goes on to proclaim that seeing Jenna Bush's "butt on a ten dollar bill" is a more immediate concern than the threat of nuclear holocaust. His advice to the youth who concur with his prioritizing skills— "Call up your congressman and say, quote, 'Sir, I'm horny and I vote.'"

Satyriasis and perverse alien fetishes only constitute 98 percent of Nerf Herder's subject matter. Several songs are devoted to the niceties of pop culture ("Welcome to My World"), the hysterical mishaps of a social misfit ("High Five Anxiety" and "Nervous Breakdown") and the undying love for hair-metal bands and their influence over jean jacket-wearing, mullet-sporting, garage bands ("Defending the Fame").

In the final minutes of the album, Gripp sends out a message to those who take life too seriously and have ceased laughing at disjointed juvenility.

"You know, I used to think you were pretty cool, until you went away to college. And now you think you're all special and stuff," he says.

Nerf Herder is for those few individuals who can still find esthetic beauty in the ridiculous, stupid and inane.